The Re-Awakening of the Author: A Brighter Lens on ‘The Dark Continent’ by Lukanyo Mbanga
What is Africa to the rest of the world? The land of poverty, diaspora and economic recession? Perhaps we’ve cracked the code with riding buffalos to school while wearing leopard skin loincloths (believe me, I’ve heard this one!). In 1878 Welsh Journalist and explorer, Henry Morton Stanley dubbed Africa, The Dark Continent: Wild, mysterious and yes– backward. Over 120 years later, we still ask ourselves: when will Africa step into the light? Maybe the better question is: When will we see that we are the light?
In 2021 I read Amerikanah by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie. My life changed. Forgive me for sounding liking skin-care commercial but it really did. I had finally come across a book that spoke of Africa in all its richness, its truth, its place in modern society. Like a mouse on a running wheel, I wondered where I’d ever fit in the worlds of Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet. Worlds we idealize as ‘cultured,’ ‘cultivated,’ or ‘romantic.’ But paging through the world of Ifemelu, I finally saw myself– not an aggrieved, hollow-cheeked African girl, but a brave, intelligent woman who isn’t mentally bounded by the stereotypes the world puts on her. I travelled with her as she grappled with taking hold of her Nigerian identity and I rejoiced with her when she seized it, taking the world around her by a storm—even those in her home country. It meant no difference to me that that I’m not Nigerian. I learnt to look at my own country, South Africa differently. I relished in our vibrancy, in the loud and proud way we carry ourselves, the full hips and full lips of our woman, our readiness to laugh heartily in public, the mad hustle of our city centres—where all five senses are buzzed with a display of humanity’s best and worst sides. This place I call home looked different. I no longer saw what we lacked as Africans but rather what we had, that couldn’t be found anywhere else.
I stand firm in saying that over the past century no nation has sweated harder in carving Africa in the world’s literary canon like Nigeria. When I walked into the David Krut Bookstore and found a book of personal essays written by Nigeria’s most acclaimed writers, I practically died and came back to life. Of This Our Country boasts writings from over 20 Nigerian authors including Chimmanda Ngozie Adichie, Sefi Atta and Chika Unigwe. The book delves into the ‘the realities and contradictions of patriotism’ and ‘explores the power of storytelling and its intrinsic link to Nigerian history.’ These are writers of not only formidable literary talents but who have also used their identity as a force of reckoning to the world and to literature.
Africa is no longer in the dark. But that’s not something these writers needed to be told—It’s a light they found within themselves. We can use our history to enrich us, to teach us but not to define us. These are authors that have broken the mould and set an exceedingly high standard for writers far and wide. As writers we look up to them and as readers we are moved by them. Of This Our Country is a must-read!
Written by Lukanyo Mbanga